DOI RECORD
Unpacking the institutional and psychological pathways of community empowerment in cultural heritage governance
Abstract
Abstract Community empowerment is widely recognized as an effective strategy for improving resident satisfaction in the governance of cultural heritage sites. However, existing studies focus primarily on institutional design and do not systematically explore the underlying psychological conversion mechanisms. To fill this gap, this paper selects Baisha Ancient Town and Xijiang Qianhu Miao Village as cases, uses Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to analyze data from 775 completed questionnaires, and explores the mediating effect of empowerment on residents’ satisfaction through cultural pride and community resilience. The results show that community empowerment not only directly promotes satisfaction, but also has significant indirect effects through emotional and institutional pathways, and the two show differences in different communities. Through unpacking the “institutional empowerment-psychological response-satisfaction feedback” process, this study contributes to theory by clarifying the synergistic roles of emotional and structural mechanisms and their contextual variations. Practically, it provides a governance framework that helps policymakers calibrate empowerment strategies to community development stages, thereby promoting both cultural continuity and socio-economic sustainability.